The Rival (34 page)

But the feeling was stronger now. 

It resembled the feeling he had in that dream, the one the Dream Rider had given him when the Fey had tried to kill him.  The feeling of something horribly, horribly out of place.

His heartbeat increased.  He really didn't know this woman.  She said she had saved him, but how could he know that for certain?  And why would she have a tunnel beside her house?

Yet the feelings he was getting didn't come from her.  They came from outside.

She wasn't Fey.  He would have known it.  The Fey had a distinctive sense to them, one he had become attuned to long ago.

But she was different.  He had met a lot of those women who embroidered for the court.  They had squinty eyes and a pinched mouths and an air of bitterness about them.  They never looked like Marly, and they never had her air of self-assurance. 

The path they were on sloped downhill.  Matthias put his free hand out and touched the wall.  It was made of stone.  Damp stone.  Someone had put a lot of work into this tunnel.

Then it veered sharply to the right.  Marly slowed as she walked, holding him back.  The path's steepness grew even sharper.  Matthias was growing lightheaded.  He felt odd.  His wounds ached, and his bruises made him stiff.  Yet his body didn't feel like his own.  He felt detached from it, as far away as he could get. 

He supposed that was a way of holding off pain, of keeping himself upright and moving.

They rounded another sharp corner.  A light glowed at the far end of the tunnel, and he heard voices.  The voices sounded ringing and hollow.  He was hearing echoes.

" … column fifteen across.  Dunno how deep … "

" … past Killeny's Bridge … "

" … some come outta the woods on the west side a town as if they was waitin there."

" … from that Shadowlands? … "

" … Dunno.   Dunno how many was in there. … "

" … never seemed like this many, though. … "

The voices were all male.  As he got closer, the wall was covered with a slimy moss, and the smell of the river grew.  The light got brighter, and the tunnel widened.

Marly had a firm grip on his arm.  Her brows were furrowed with concentration.  She stepped gingerly along the path, as if she were looking out for puddles.

Then they went through an arch, and Matthias found himself in a large underground cavern.  It seemed, at first, to be a natural structure, but he had never heard of caves near the rivers.  The ground was too flat for it.  There were caves all along the rim of Blue Isle, but none in the middle.   Then, as he peered closer, he realized that the walls and the ceiling were lined with stone.  It was old and moss covered, making it look natural.  Water dripped not too far from here, and he wondered how stable the cavern was.

The space was a larger version of the catacombs beneath the Tabernacle and, from the looks of it, had been built around the same time.

A dozen men sat on crates in the middle of the cavern.  Lanterns were spaced around the crates and near the ceiling on the far end, torches flared in holders.  The stone above them was blackened.

"Marly."  The man on the right stood.  He was stocky, his face soot-darkened, his hair plastered in mud.  "Bout time, girl.  We was about to get ye."

"Sure ye were," she said. "N pigs swim."

She pulled Matthias into the light. 

"Couldn't just leave yer lordly charge," she said.

The man who had spoken rolled his eyes.  "If"n I knew twas to be this kinda night, I'da never brung him to ye."

"Too late."  Her tone had a false cheerfulness to it. 

"Ye shoulda left him above, Marly."  The man who spoke was leaning against the wall, a blade of river grass between his teeth.

"Aye, Marls."  A third man spoke.  He was trim and lanky, his blond hair shining in the lantern light.  "Ye know what ye brung us, mmm?  Certain death, he is."

Matthias's dizziness was overpowering.  He swayed.  Marly grabbed him tighter.  "Help me get him to the blankets," she said.

Two of the men who hadn't spoken grabbed his arms and carried him forward, pulling his feet off the ground, and then setting him on a pile of blankets.

"N where're we ta sleep, Marly?" the first man asked.

"Here, Jakib," she said.  "Just like we planned."

"I don't need anything special," Matthias said.  His voice quivered.

"Let's kill him now n be done with it," the third man said.

"Stop," Marly said.  "He's hurt and he's na threat to ye."

"Aye, but he is, Marls," the third man said.  "Ye dunno what ye have there."

"N what do I have here, Yasep? Besides a man who needs me help?"

"The Fifty-First Rocaan."  Yasep crossed his arms and leaned back against a crate.  "The man what killed most of the Fey.  The man what killed the Fey prisoner fifteen years back.  The man what killed the Demon Queen."

Matthias looked up at the man.  Yasep had squarish features and round eyes a cold ice blue.  His clothes were as tattered as the others' but not as filthy.  His shirt still had traces of white.

Matthias didn't recognize him, but that meant nothing.  This Yasep could have attended services.  Or he could simply have been one of those people who paid close attention to the world around him.

Of that, actually, Matthias had no doubt.

"Naw," Jakib was saying.  "The Fifty-First Rocaan is dead.  Murdered in the Tabernacle he was by the Fifty-Second Rocaan."

Matthias took a deep breath.  If he was going to die tonight, it might as well be now.  "Actually," he said, "Titus would never kill anyone.  It was my only hesitation in appointing him my successor."

"Lor"." Marly breathed the word.  She crouched beside him and took his injured face gently in her hands.  Then she turned it from side to side and touched his graying curls.  "I seen ye in all yer finery years ago, Holy Sir, and ye was never this thin or this finely edged."

"Don't call me Holy Sir," Matthias said.  "I'm not Rocaan any more."

"I dinna know a man could stop bein Beloved a God," the second man said.

"Shush, Denl," Jakib said.

Denl shrugged.  "Tis what the Auds taught me."

"Dunna matter," Yasep said.  "We need ta kill him."

"No," Marly said.  "I do what ye all wan when ye wan it, but I tol ye years ago I will na help ye kill and I will na use me talents ta harm.  Tis agin what I am."

"Ye dunna have ta do it, Marls, but we canna let him stay here."  Yasep sounded quite certain of himself.  "And we canna let him go, knowin where we are."

Matthias had no more energy to defend himself.  In a hand to hand fight, he would lose quickly and easily.  His heart was pounding, though. 

Marly leaned against him, protecting him with her body.  "Ye'll na kill him.  Ye have no reason."

"I got plenty reason," Yasep said.  "The Fey hate him.  They hate him more'n any other man.  Tis one of their best he killed and they willna forget it."

"Maybe we can use him," Denl said.  He glanced at Matthias, his face pale.  "Ye know, trade him."

"Tis well known the Fey dunna keep their bargains," one of the other men said.

"I dunna see why ye have ta kill him," Marly said.  "Tis serious wounded he is.  He'll do ye no harm."

"Ha ye na been listening, woman?" Yasep said.  "He's the hated enemy a all Fey.  And who is it we be hidin from, huh?  Twerent for this place, we'd be fightin fer our lives as we speak."

"They willna find him here."

"Can ye be sure a that?" Yasep said.  "They got powers, they do."

Matthias swallowed.  He wasn't following all of this.  But he had an idea.  And it sent chills down his back.  "They've got powers," he said, forcing himself to sit up.  He swayed with dizziness.  He gripped the edge of the blankets to steady himself.  "But they've wanted me for fifteen years, and never found me.  Their powers don't extend to finding someone who wants to be hidden."

"See?" Marly said.  She put a hand on his shoulder, and stopped his swaying.

"I would think that instead of killing me you would want my help," he said.  "I don't know the situation  —  Marly hasn't told me  —  but I've killed Fey as you know, and I've hidden from them successfully.  I would think that I'm someone you'd want beside you in a battle against the Fey instead of one you'd want to get rid of."

"I dunno about the others," Denl said, "but I dinna like ta be in the presence a someone who's abandoned God.  Beg pardon, Holy Sir."

Jakib snorted.  Yasep  shook his head.  One of the other men suppressed a giggle.

"Tis not a laughin matter," Marly said.  "Denl believes.  Ye can respect that."

The men stopped, heads down as if they were suppressing their mirth.

Matthias's grip on the blankets tightened.  He had to stay conscious, and he had to argue for himself.  It was the only chance he saw of staying alive.

"I did not abandon God," Matthias said.  "I stepped down from a position I should never have held in the first place.  The Fiftieth Rocaan was murdered.  He never expected that, nor did he expect me to truly become Rocaan.  My presence would have destroyed Rocaanism.  I left because I love God and the Church, not because I abandoned it."

"Lor."  The man who spoke sat in half darkness toward the back of the crates.  His face was lined with fatigue and his hair was stringy.  His clothes were so filthy that Matthias could smell them.  "The Fifty-First Rocaan telling us why he dinna stay in his post.  Tis odd things these days bring."

"Aye, tis," Yasep said.  "But tis truly none a our concern.  We canna care for ye, religious one, nor can we ha ye here.  Them  Fey'll — "

"What about the Fey?" Matthias asked. "What's changed?"

The men glanced at each other.  Marly's hand tightened on his shoulder.

"I dinna tell him," she said.  "Twas na time."

"Latse," Yasep said, nodding toward the filthy man in the back, "twas near Killeny's Bridge just afore dawn.  He seen  — "

"I seen," Latse said loudly, obviously determined to tell it himself, "Fey coming out a the side roads as if they'n been there a while.  They joined up on the south end a the Bridge n marched across, fifteen to a row, rows n rows deep.  Me n the horse twas under a bridge  — "

"You have a horse?" Matthias asked.  Very few Islanders had horses. Most of the ones who did were gentry.

"Aye," Latse said.  He glanced at the others.  Yasep crossed his arm and waited for Latse to continue.  "They dinna see me.  But it took em a good long time ta march across.  I took the horse, and went along a path I know  —  tis the old Aud's path what winds  — "

"I know it," Matthias said.  He'd walked it enough in his youth, during his own years as an Aud.

"Well," Latse said.  "I come inta Jahn ahead of em, but they's already Fey here.  Tiny ones riding other animals.  And more coming, from the skies and outta hiding places.  Some're on the streets and at first they have faces, and then the faces shimmer and become nothing.  Twas scary."

"He came to me," Yasep said.  "But  — "

"I'd already come," Denl said.  "I seen Fey comin in from the woods on the west side a town.  Them big Fey, the ones what can pull skin off with their fingers."

"Jakib sent word ta me," Marly said, "n that's when I brung ye here."

Matthias blinked, trying to absorb the information.  Fey, invading Jahn again, not from the river this time, nor really from the Shadowlands, but from the south.

The feeling he'd had for weeks.

Somehow the Fey had arrived from the south.  The question was, who were these Fey?  The reinforcements so long feared?  Or the Fey who'd always been on the Isle?

Not that it mattered.  What mattered first was saving his own life. 

He sighed.  He only had one thing to bargain with.  He had to use it.  "I know how to make holy water," he said.

"Ye make it?" Denl asked.  "I thought twas the Rocaan's blessing twas what made it holy."

Matthias shook his head.  "There's a procedure.  I can do it."

"Twoud be blasphemy," Denl said.

"Aye," Latse said.  "but twould save our hides."

"He's evil, that one," Denl said.  "He's only tryin ta save his own hide."

"Yes, I am," Matthias said.  "Wouldn't you in my shoes?"

"A man a God should be trustin God," Denl said.

"A man of God," Matthias said in a voice he hadn't used since he was Rocaan, "shouldn't take God for granted."

The cavern was silent.  One of the men shifted slightly, rocking back and forth on his feet.  Marly eased her arm around Matthias, supporting his back.  His entire body hurt.  Black spots danced in front of his eyes, but he wouldn't let himself pass out.

He couldn't.

Finally Yasep turned away.  "Still n all," he said, "I dinna think ye can stay with us.  Ye'll have ta take him back up, Marly."

"She will na," Jakib said.  "Tain't safe up there."

"Yer sister dinna ha ta go in," Yasep said.  "She just has ta open the panel."

"And show em where we're at."

"They willna come in a empty building," Yasep said. "They dinna afore."

"Afore they dinna ha so many soldiers," Denl said.  "They'll use empty buildings."

"And they'll know someone was in that un," Marly said.  "I dinna hide the fact that we just left."

"She canna go," Jakib said.

Matthias had had enough.  His body would quit on him soon whether he wanted it to or not.  He had to do something. 

He took a deep breath, and used the last of his strength.  "Why are you afraid of me, Yasep?"

"I'm afraid a no man," Yasep said.

"I can help you.  I can make holy water.  I can save all our lives.  I have defeated more Fey than you've seen, and you still want me out of your life.  Why?"  Matthias put all his strength in his voice.  He sounded authoritarian, even to his own ears.

Yasep licked his lips.  He glanced at the others.  They all watched him, eyes glowing in the lantern light.  "Yer tall," he said.

"So?" Matthias said, hating the charge.

"Tis said only a demon can defeat a demon."

"Lor," Marly said.  "He's from the Cliffs a Blood.  It dinna make him a demon."

"He's tall," Yasep said again.

Marly opened her mouth, but Matthias brought up a hand and covered hers, hoping to silence her.  "I am not a demon," he said.  "I cannot control how I'm built or the circumstances of my birth.  But you may believe what you want.  If you take me for a demon so be it."